As we announced back in August, our inside source learned that Phish would return in 2009. About 20 minutes ago, three dates were officially announced at Phish.com — March 6, 7 and 8 at the Coliseum in Hampton Virginia. Limited Tickets at Phish.com are available now, and the general sale begins on October 18.
The Meat Puppets were simply one of the most unlikely but ultimately rewarding redemption stories of the entire year of 2007 in music. When we saw them perform at Knitting Factory in August of 2007, the band was tight, focused and performed a powerful set. The challenge for this band in 2008 has been to maintain that level of proficiency.
At Terminal 5 on Friday night, the Meat Puppets had the unenviable task of opening for two outstanding bands with strong fan bases and also had to begin their set at 7:30. Despite the restrictions, the band continued the momentum from last year and added something old and new — a reckless and devil-may-care energy to their music. The result was a set of standard Pups with some nice surprises and twists mixed in. While Johnny Cash’s “Tennessee Stud” was an inspired cover choice performed well, a cover of the Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows” was a misstep that ended abruptly. “Up On the Sun” and its extended jam continues to be one of the set highlights, but the harder and faster version of “Lake of Fire” seemed somewhat unfocused. Overall though, the Meat Puppets remain one of the best resurrection stories in modern music, and if the band continues to perform energetic sets without allowing the recklessness to fuel discord, they may remain a vital unit for years.
We recorded the set from the same location as the two previous recordings. However, given that the venue was only half full for this performance, the recording has virtually no crowd noise and excellent clarity. Enjoy!
This recording is now available to Download in FLAC and MP3 at Archive.org [HERE].
Meat Puppets
2008-09-26
Terminal 5
New York, NY USA
Digital Master Audience Recording
Recorded from Floor – Dead Center 100 Feet from Stage
Neumann KM-150’s > Monster Cable > Apogee Mini-Me > digital coax > M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge 8.0 (level adjustments, downsample 16/44) > CD Wave 1.75 > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac
Recorded and Produced by nyctaper
2008-09-30
Setlist:
[total time 56:48]
01 Buckaroo
02 Sam
03 Up On The Sun
04 Snow
05 Touchdown King
06 Lost
07 The Whistling Song
08 Bali Hai
09 Coming Down
10 Look At The Rain
11 Oh, Me
12 Tennessee Stud (Johnny Cash)
13 Tomorrow Never Knows (Beatles)*
14 Lake of Fire
If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The Meat Puppets, visit their website, and purchase their Official Releases directly from the Anodyne Records website [HERE].
We have a particular affinity for Dinosaur Jr. here at nyctaper. It was our recording of them in the first few weeks of this site that put us “on the map” as it were. A year and a half ago, that concert exceeded all of our expectations. Last night at Terminal 5, Dinosaur Jr. exhibited an energy and level of proficiency that completely floored us — the band was even better than last time. Lou Barlow was energetic, animated and played frenetic bass guitar, and Murph was pounding furiously and filling up the huge room with his pinpoint beat. But it was the guitar work of J Mascis which most impressed us. As he stood played in front of his huge stacks of Marshall amps, J absolutely shredded every solo — and in particular his extended work in “Pick Me Up” and “Gargoyle” was simply outstanding.
We recorded this set from the identical location as the Built to Spill recording. However, the massive volume of this set virtually eliminated all crowd noise so that this is a cleaner recording. Enjoy!
This recording is now available in FLAC and MP3 at the Dinosaur Jr. Archives at Free So Free [HERE].
Dinosaur Jr.
2008-09-26
Terminal 5
New York, NY USA
Digital Master Audience Recording
Recorded from Floor – Dead Center 100 Feet from Stage
Neumann KM-150’s > Monster Cable > Apogee Mini-Me > digital coax > M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge 8.0 (level adjustments, downsample 16/44) > CD Wave 1.75 > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac
Recorded and Produced by nyctaper
2008-09-27
Setlist:
[total time 1:10:19]
01 The Lung
02 Been There All The Time
03 Back To Your Heart
04 No Bones
05 Out There
06 Feel the Pain
07 Pick Me Up
08 The Wagon
09 Repulsion
10 Raisans
11 Freak Scene
12 Gargoyle
13 Just Like Heaven
14 Chunks
If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Dinosaur Jr., visit their website, and purchase their Official Releases directly from the Dinosaur Jr. Store at their website [HERE].
The concert last night at Terminal 5 was a musical extravaganza. The sold-out crowd was treated to four solid hours of outstanding music from three superb bands which was highlighted by the start-to-finish performance of Built to Spill‘s Perfect From Now On. The seminal album was released in early 1997 as Built to Spill‘s first CD with Warner and first consistently excellent album. Although the release did boost the profile of the band, Perfect From Now On was not an immediate breakthrough — the album has grown in popularity and influence over the last decade. As a matter of illustration, we saw Built to Spill live at a not-sold-out show at the relatively tiny Maxwell’s in 1998 (a recording is in the nyctaper archives).
The performance at Terminal 5 was well-executed and workmanlike, although not thoroughly inspired. In particular, in recent years “Randy Described Eternity” has become a bell weather for the strength of the show — we saw an eighteen-minute blistering version at Irving Plaza in 2006 (also in the nyctaper archives). Last night, “Randy” was much closer to the album version. The highlight of Perfect last night was the album’s strong finish of “Kicked It in the Sun” and “Untrustable”. But it was the “bonus” material where the band let loose and shined, ironically performing consecutively the first three numbers of Perfect’s follow-up album, the arguably stronger Keep It Like a Secret. “Carry The Zero” devolved into complete mayhem, as members of Dinosaur Jr. and Meat Puppets joined in a bizarre jam session with liberal instrument-switching and stage antics.
While the music onstage was almost universally excellent, the most unfortunate aspect of the show last night was the crowd — a Friday night midtown crowd with no apparent interest in anything other than being drunk, loud and obnoxious. It was one of the worst out of control groups we have experienced in three decades of concert-going.
We recorded from the rear of the floor directly in front of the drink rail. The sound in the venue was not optimal and some of the crowd behavior is evident on the recording. While this is not one of our best efforts, under the circumstances the quality of this recording is quite acceptable. Enjoy!
Dinosaur Jr. and Meat Puppets were also recorded and will be featured on nyctaper in the coming days.
Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)
Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].
Built to Spill
2008-09-26
Terminal 5
New York, NY USA
Digital Master Audience Recording
Recorded from Floor – Dead Center 100 Feet from Stage
Neumann KM-150’s > Monster Cable > Apogee Mini-Me > digital coax > M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge 8.0 (level adjustments, downsample 16/44) > CD Wave 1.75 > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac
Recorded and Produced by nyctaper
2008-09-27
Setlist:
[total time 1:35:15]
01 Randy Described Eternity
02 I Would Hurt a Fly
03 Stop the Show
04 Made-Up Dreams
05 Velvet Waltz
06 Out of Site
07 Kicked It in the Sun
08 Untrustable/Part 2 (About Someone Else)
09 The Plan
10 Center of the Universe
11 Carry The Zero
12 Jam
If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Built to Spill, visit their website, and purchase their Official Releases directly from the Built to Spill Store at their website [HERE].
If you’ve seen this error lately, here’s why. The popularity of four recordings in one week — Robert Forster, two Sigur Ros shows, and The Feelies — has stretched the server to its limit. Our host server limited this site to 1000 concurrent unique connections after the fiasco last October. If you are connection number 1001, you will get the Error 503 message.
There are several possible solutions to this problem, none of which seem feasible at this point. I have discussed an unlimited dedicated server with my host, but unfortunately the cost is quite prohibitive. There is a small cap and any bandwidth and storage above that cap is charged at an alarming rate considering the amount of traffic nyctaper receives. This is not a pay site, will never be a pay site, and will remain free.
This is also an ad-free site. There are plenty of commercial blogs that shill for their advertisers and post irresponsible and inflammatory material to generate traffic. This is not one of those blogs. Due to the popularity of this site we have reached a Page Rank 5 level and get about 10,000 hits a day. As a result, we have received multiple overtures from advertisers and advertising sites which we have rejected. We reject advertising for two main reasons — to remain objective and free from influence, and as a sign of respect to the artists whose music we feature.
We do not expect any quick solution to the server limitation problem. When our two-year package with our current server host expires in May, we expect to look around for a more stable and perhaps higher speed host. In the meantime, the only other solution we can imagine would be a “white knight” — an unlimited free server like the archive.org host.
Until that pie in the sky solution materializes, all we can ask from our faithful readers is patience and discretion. Please only download one or two recordings at a time and don’t hammer the server. On Sunday, there were 73,000 connection attempts from one IP address in Germany and on Monday, there were 900 files downloaded from an IP address at the University of New Orleans Lakefront Campus. nyctaper can not tolerate or survive abuse. We hope that our readers will bear with us and respect the site and its limitations.
Wilco offer a free download today if you pledge to vote. At Wilcoworld, when you provide your name and email address, and pledge to vote on November 4, Wilco will mail a location to download a cover of Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” recorded (with Fleet Foxes) in Bend Oregon on August 23, 2008.
nyctaper also recorded Wilco in August, and we want you to vote too!
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